Welcome my fair readers. If you remember last week I reviewed Blood Fest by Pepper Oneal. Oh you missed it...well click
here and then come back. I had a few questions for Pepper about writing in general and Blood Fest. Her answers were entertaining and surprising. Go check her out.
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| http://www.myballard.com/2010/03/08/dont-miss-the-poem-store-at-the-farmers-market/ |
1. Do you specifically write paranormal?
No, not specifically. But so far that’s the only fiction genre I’ve been published in. I’ve written an action/adventure novel about a girl on the run from a murderer (based on a true story, by the way) that I haven’t found a home for yet. But I’m confident I will. Eventually. (I feel ya here. I write paranormal, fantasy and romantic suspense. I right what come in my mind.)
2. What fights with your attention in finding time to write?
If you had asked me that question before I spent several years working as a writer in third world countries, I would have told that I could write only under optimum conditions—when I had at least a couple of hours free to write, supper was over with, the dishes done, the neighbors quiet, But after writing in adverse conditions—such as sitting on a fallen log in the pouring rain; perched on a rock beside the campfire, fending off mosquitoes the size of small dogs with one hand while scribbling furiously with the other; having to fight cockroaches for a square foot of writing space; or hiding under a stool during a bar fight—I’d have to say I can write just about anywhere, under any conditions.
(Okay I'm feeling a little self conscious.)
3. How do you overcome those distractions and write?
While working in the conditions I mentioned above, I had deadlines to meet, and if I had failed to meet them, I would have most likely been fired. Since I loved the job and the people I worked with, I was highly motivated to ignore the adverse conditions and write. Consequently, writing out of my home office with air conditioning in the summer, central heating in the winter—sans cockroaches and bar fights—is a breeze. Rather like combat soldiers that train themselves to sleep whenever and wherever they can, because if they don’t, they may not have another chance, I’ve trained myself to ignore all distractions and write.
(And now I'm thoroughly humbled...and now I'm not. A child just launched a box of cereal at another one.)
4. I love the half/ware ideas. How did you come up with the premise for this novel?
I really wish I knew. My storylines usually come to me in my dreams, or else they pop into my head in the shower or when I’m driving, but when they come, they come complete with basic character sketches. In this case, I knew Roman was a vampire, but he didn’t feel complete until I combined him with a sweet, shy, wild wolf I met in a remote area in Southern Mexico. (He used to sneak into our camp and steal tuna fish sandwiches.) So it seemed only right to make Roman half vampire, half werewolf. (Same way...in the shower, at a basketball game, in a meeting with a teacher while I'm half listening.)
5. Your characters were amazing and connectible...do you have a process?
I don’t know that I would call it a process, but I try to model my characters after real people—and animals—I know. This makes it easier for me to connect with them and to imagine how they would react in any given situation. It also makes my characters more real to me, so they are naturally going to be more real to my readers.
Thanks a lot Pepper. Great book and thanks for sharing your experiences and process with you.
So fair readers where is the craziest place you've written?
